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Lali Shitrit
I am Lali Shitrit and this is my and my partner, Dor Kapah, story from the Nova festival.
All week, we were excited about the party and looked forward to it.
Dor came to work as a masseuse, and I came to enjoy the party.
The party was fantastic! Great music with amazing artists, a crowd of people who came to love, dance, and embrace. Every moment in the open space was a moment of pure happiness, and there was a scent of unconditional love in the air.
Until 6:30 in the morning, the beautiful sunrise suddenly turned into signs of missile trails, smoke, and hundreds of rockets flying over our heads. At first, we didn't understand what was happening. The music stopped, and everyone was told that there was missile firing, and the party was closing. People were asked to evacuate.
Dor and Gilad, the second masseur, quickly folded the massage stand and loaded everything into the car. After about half an hour, we started hearing gunfire from both directions of the entrance to the party. We decided to stay within the party area because we didn't know the extent of the event and the number of attackers. We thought it was safer to stay in the vicinity of the security and police presence. After a few minutes, we received a phone call from a friend who was at home, shouting, "Don't leave! There are terrorists everywhere – they're shooting RPG missiles at houses, they're in the cities and on the roads." Ten minutes later, I saw people running and shots being fired. We got on the jeep – Dor, Gilad, and me.
And so began our escape.
The attackers were shooting at us, firing at everyone. We tried to leave the party area and identified our friend Ohad. We him into the jeep with us. When we reached the parking lot, we realized we were surrounded from all sides. People were trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. They came from everywhere. We saw our friends running, and one after another, they fell from the gunfire
I saw Alex, my good friend and my boss, we lifted him into the car despite having no space, and we started thinking about where to escape. We went out into the open and saw an IDF jeep, so we drove towards it. When we arrived, the jeep was empty and covered in blood. On the seat next to the driver was a weapon. Dor got out, took the weapon, and began searching for bullets in the jeep. We found three bullets. Dor tried to fix the weapon, but it was completely broken. We continued, following the tracks of the terrorists' vehicles, driving on the path they took, assuming they wouldn't return the same way.
Alex, who knew the area, started guiding us towards Israeli settlements. Gunshots didn't stop for a second, missiles were flying above us. After about half an hour in the open, we stopped in the fields near Kibbutz Be’eri. Alex went to talk to his wife on the phone, and Ohad went to urinate. A few seconds after they went down, a group of 8 terrorists on motorcycles and a jeep and drove straight towards us. Alex and Ohad tried to hide in some nearby plantations, and we took off with the car to attract the terrorists attention.
We drove for about fifteen minutes until we managed to lose the terrorists and decieded to stop near some bushes. We turned on and off the engine to listen if anyone was approaching. We tried to open the map in our phones to better understand our location, but we had no signal probably due to the terrorists cutting off our communication. Looking out of the window, I noticed birds flying in circles above the trees when there was gunfire. This helped me navigate and understand where the shots were coming from.ֿ
Then we suddenly hear shouts in Arabic and started driving again. Another group of 10 terrorists chased us, constantly shooting from all directions. Dor maneuvered the jeep skillfully to create a dust screen, and after a while we managed to escape them
and as we approached a curved road 8 terrorists on motorcycles appeared in front of us. Dor signaled to them with his head, and for a moment, they thought he was one of them, then they noticed me with my head lowered and tucked between my legs and they began shouting, "Jew! Jew!" We started speeding in their direction, and they sprayed us with their guns. One motorcyclist managed to approach the car window and shot Gilad in the head. He came closer to my window, and Dor hit him with the jeep from the front. Immediately after, he hit another terrorist from behind with the jeep. His performance and understanding of what needed to be done were extraordinary.
While all this was happening, I managed to get the police on the line, and they could hear the gunfire and shouts when Gilead was hit. We continued towards Be’eri through the fields, passing Be’eri we decided to go to the hospital because Gilad took a bullet to his head. As we approached Alumim, two pickup trucks full of terrorists armed with RPGs and Kalashnikovs awaited us.
Dor took a hard left towards the fields again where 2 terrorists suddenly jump out of the bushes holding AKs so Dor decides to turn back towards Be’eri and thats when we were targeted by an RPG missile, luckily just nearly hitting our car.
We arrive at Be’eri and saw the magnitude of horrific things the Hamas terrorists did.
Bodies scattered everywhere, at the main entrance to the Kibbutz we saw a car with a dead Israeli inside it, half of his body is hanging outside of the car with his brain splattered all over the road and a Psalms prayer book next to him.
The smell was terrible and there was blood everywhere.

We realised that Hamas terrorists took over Be’eri and we have nowhere else to go
We began to hear shouts and songs in Arabic coming from inside of Be’eri, advancing towards us. We drove with the car on the right side, where a bicycle shop and diner are located at the entrance to the kibbutz. I got out of the car and started looking for open doors while shouting, "Jews, Jews," but everything was locked.

I circled the building and found a restroom door open, an old door of plastic and translucent glass. The door had no lock, but we had no other choice. Dor…
Dor brings Gilad and we enter the restroom. Dor breaks with his hand the inner glass door that leads to the shower. We spread towels on the floor to muffle our footsteps. Dor holds the entrance door with his hand to make it seem locked. Gilad and I hide behind the curtain in the shower, attempting to bandage him and stop his bleeding. About 20 long minutes later, the building became an improvised Hamas headquarters, with 30-50 Hamas members outside the door, armed with weapons and missiles. We tried to breathe quietly and in short breaths. The tension inside was worse than any horror movie—the realisation that they could enter any second and slaughter us. Several times, we heard the IDF trying to reach us, and each time, at the end of the battle, we heard Arabic chants, realising that our forces were overrun.

We were completely alone, and except for God, no one could save us. I never stopped praying and talking to God for a second, begging him to perform a miracle and save us. I started texting from the restroom with a friend of mine who was back at his home and had connections with all the military units, providing them with information constantly. He kept insisting that the forces were on the way, but no one arrived.

I had a terrible fear that Gilad, who had a bullet in his head, would simply die. I did not agree to let him accept this situation, and I kept repeating the sentence, "We will get out of this," even though I didn't believe it myself. I wanted to sweeten the last moments for him.

At some point, the oxygen began to run out for us, and we felt started feeling dizzy. We tried not to close our eyes and stayed hidden there for 6 hours, which felt like eternity. We couldn't stop hearing the murderers speaking in Arabic and all the sounds of the massacre in the kibbutz, the screams of children and women, people begging for their lives for a little mercy. No mercy was there; they slaughtered everyone indiscriminately, shooting freaking missiles into houses and setting them on fire while laughing.